


Making Sure

by ChemicalChance



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChemicalChance/pseuds/ChemicalChance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned gets awoken in the middle of the night by a very worried Robb, who's had no luck comforting his frightened half-brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Sure

**Author's Note:**

> I just got my computer functional again after a week, and I was reading the asoiaf kink meme... and this happened. It's kind of pointless and sticky-sweet, but there you have it.

Eddard Stark came awake with a jerk and a soft murmured cry to an insistent prodding at his side. His eldest son was standing at the side of the bed, peering at him with wide azure eyes. Ned felt a fleeting sense of anger when he thought what he could have done to the boy unthinking, wrenched from his repose as he had been, but the trust shining in his son's gaze quashed it. Robb already had a finger pressed to his lips, and there was an urgent set to his narrow shoulders, such that Ned shook off his haze and recovered quickly.

"Robb," Ned whispered, out of deference for his son's unspoken request for quiet. Besides which, Cat was seven months pregnant and slept poorly, and so he wanted to avoid waking her if he could. Robb's small frame stiffened even more and he shook his head frantically, pointing at the door. His son left the room immediately after that, padding silently over the rug. Ned planted his feet on the floor with a heavy sigh. Whatever was going on, he felt sure he wasn't going to like it. Cat stirred on the bed as he stood but remained asleep.

When Ned reached the hall, Robb was already waiting halfway down it, watching him with an expectant gravity. Ned didn't want to shout after him; after all, the boy had come to him with purpose but quietly, not screaming, and there was no need to alarm Cat. When he caught up he asked Robb softly, "What is it, lad? What's wrong?"

Robb looked up at him earnestly, his fingers twisting nervously around the hem of his sleeping tunic. “It's Jon,” he said quietly, and Ned's heart did a fluttering little flip in his chest.

“What about him?”

“He had a nightmare,” Robb said somberly. He frowned. “I tried to help him stop crying, I swear, but he wouldn't. He's really hot, too. I think he's sick. I told him we should come to your room, but he said he wasn't allowed. So I said I would come get you, and he said he'd like that, as long as I didn't wake mother.”

Ned looked down at Robb, a complex tangle of emotions coiling in his gut. He felt great pride at his eldest son's compassion, but he felt great shame and sadness when he thought of the dereliction he'd done his younger. For a child to come to have to come to him in secrecy out of concern for his brother's health... it almost did not bear thinking about, and yet, here he was. Ned knelt and scooped Robb into his arms, pressing his lips to his son's coarse hair, just beginning to curl and darken from its juvenile flaxen blond. Robb was getting taller, but he was still so lanky with boyhood that hoisting him warranted no effort at all. It would not be long, Ned supposed, before he would disdain such shows of affection.

“Well, Robb,” Ned said hoarsely around the ache in his throat, “let's go see to your brother then, shall we?”

Robb was newly seven and Jon was just shy of it, and Robb had lobbied for their right to a room of their own. Cat was pregnant again, after all, and both boys were just barely old enough to remember the disruption that had come from sharing their nursery with their infant sister Sansa. Cat had tried to convince Robb that it would be nicer if he had his own room altogether, or maybe if he shared one with Theon (who was twelve and would not have liked that idea at all, even though his foster brother had begun to grow on him), but Robb wouldn't hear of the loss of his playmate. It seemed probable to Ned that this was part of a broader scheme on the boys' part to stay up late talking in their bed, out of Old Nan's earshot. Ned and Robert had been slightly older when they'd met, but he remembered them doing the same thing. Children did such things.

Ned could hear Jon's sobs before they reached the boys' room; he was making lusty, brokenhearted noises of the sort only distraught children could utter. Jon was typically a stoic child, not unlike Ned himself had been, so for the boy to be weeping as he was suggested that there was a true problem. Ned's pulse quickened a little at his throat and he widened his stride, closing the last of the distance between himself and his other son with greater haste.

Robb squirmed out of Ned's arms and scrambled up onto the bed he shared with his brother, pressing Jon into a quick, tight hug that the smaller boy made no move to return. “I brought father,” Robb announced, as if he had just solved all the world's problems. Ned's chest ached again. He sat on the bed beside the boys, putting a hand on Jon's shoulder in an attempt to unfold him. Jon resisted with a sniffle, shivering, and Ned could instantly feel the dry heat bleeding from his skin. He misliked that. Fevers in children Jon's age were likely to pass without doing them any lasting harm, but when they didn't... It was enough to necessitate taking precautions. Jon's eyes flickered to his face, glazed and glassy, and the sight made his decision for him.

Ned took a split second to calm himself before telling Robb, “You were right to come get me. You did well, Robb,” he paused. “Could you do one more thing for me?” Robb nodded emphatically. “I need you to fetch Maester Luwin. Tell him your brother has a fever. He should be in his chambers, at this hour. Jon will be fine,” he added for the benefit of both his children, “but the Maester should be able to help him feel better.”

Robb took off as fast as his feet could carry him, and Ned turned his attention to his other son. Jon had quieted somewhat since someone had returned to see to him, but he was still whimpering and he hadn't spoken. He still seemed reluctant to unfurl himself and lose what little warmth he had – even though he had far too much, in truth. Ned slid his arm's under Jon's shoulders and legs, pulling him into his lap. “It's all right, Jon,” he said soothingly. “It's all going to be fine.” Jon's crying stilled to uneven, too heavy breathing, even though his frame was still shaking like a leaf. Wanting to know what he thought might be the piece of information that mattered the most, Ned asked, “Were you injured recently? Did you cut yourself in the yard, anything like that?”

Jon swallowed hard. “No,” he whispered in a froggy little voice that seemed to confirm that he was ill rather than suffering an infected wound. Ned calmed, a little. Simple childhood illness was not often something to worry about, but for a boy like Jon who was not wont to complain, there was always the possibility that he'd let some minor injury go untreated long enough to cause a real problem. Jon and Robb had both had redspots as toddlers; they'd been too young to remember it but thoroughly miserable all the same. Even if he'd had an infection, be it greyscale or gangrene, there was naught that Ned could do for the child but comfort him.

“Robb told me you had a bad dream,” Ned ventured, stroking a hand through his son's dark curls. Even Jon's scalp was hot and arid; he hadn't sweat at all. 

The tremor that wracked Jon's frame wasn't febrile this time. “There were monsters,” he said, his voice dreamy with fever in spite of his obvious fear. “Monsters like men, only... Only they weren't. They were dead, and they were going to...” he stopped, sobbing again. His words wormed into Ned's brain uneasily. Someone had been regaling the child with tales of the Others. He scowled, resolving to speak to the Greyjoy boy.

“Hush, lad,” Ned told him gently. “Monsters don't walk amongst men any more. Your uncle Benjen and his brothers see to that.”

“But it was so real,” Jon insisted fervently, hiding his face against his father's chest.

“I know, Jon,” Ned murmured. “It's only that you're ill. A fever can make a man see strange things. I'd bet you feel quite sore, don't you?”

Jon nodded timidly. Ned made himself smile. “That's the fever too. Don't fret; you'll be fine. The maester will give you something to help you cool off and...”

“I don't want to cool off,” Jon mewled in dismay. “I'm too cold already!”

A single humourless chuckle shook Ned's chest. “I know it seems that way, but it's only because you're so warm compared to the air in the room. Do you think you could manage to lie flat on your back and let some of the heat away? You won't feel so cold, after a few minutes.”

Jon shook his head, tears welling in his eyes.

“I think you can,” Ned cajoled, placing his son back against his damp pillow. “I know it will be uncomfortable, but you can be brave for me, can't you?” Perhaps it wasn't a fair thing to say to his bastard child, always so eager to please him, but it was the very same thing he'd have said to Robb, and it worked. Jon uncurled, flat against his back. His teeth chattered and he had his hands knotted into tiny fists, his brow knit with the effort not to seek warmth, but he stayed still. Ned set a hand over one of Jon's and kissed his forehead. “That's right, Jon, just stay like that.”

Jon lay back against the bed in silent misery, his breathing rough and shallow and his muscles tensed. Ned was beginning to wonder if he'd fallen into a fitful sleep when the boy mumbled, “Father, do you see that?”

“Do I see what?” Ned asked in consternation.

“The colours,” Jon explained faintly, making a half-hearted attempt to gesture at the ceiling. “Up there.”

“It's only a trick of the light,” Ned lied, frowning. The sooner the maester came, the better.

“It's never done that before...”

“Hush, Jon,” Ned said again. Perhaps he should have told the child the truth, but Jon was plainly delirious and Ned was loathe to frighten him any further. “It won't be long now.”

Gods be thanked, it wasn't. Robb hurried into the room with a frazzled Maester Luwin in tow. The maester was carrying a bag and Robb was leading him by his other hand, eyeing him with a reproachful look that seemed to say he was not pleased with the maester's pace. Robb climbed back onto the bed, sitting at the head of the bed near Jon, and Luwin turned his attention to Ned. 

“What seems to be wrong with the boy, Lord Stark?”

“I'm so cold,” Jon croaked in his new hoarse tones, at once more and less boyish than his usual voice. “And my throat hurts. And I had a terrible nightmare...”

Maester Luwin clucked his tongue, leaning down to the bed to touch Jon's forehead. “How did you feel yesterday?”

“My throat hurt a little,” Jon admitted. “And my shoulders were a bit sore.”

“He hardly touched his supper yesterday,” Robb chimed in helpfully. “I ate his dessert.”

“I see,” Maester Luwin said thoughtfully. “Does you neck hurt, especially?” Jon shook his head. “I need you to hold still for me, Jon,” Luwin told his patient. “I need to touch your throat.” Jon stayed as immobile as he could, and Luwin laid questioning fingers on either side of the small protrusion at Jon's larynx. “Mm, yes, they're quite inflamed. I don't think we've anything to fear,” he said, addressing Ned. “He's caught a simple catarrhal fever. Sore throat, increased body temperature, that sort of thing. He'll need to increase his fluid intake, and I'd recommend feeding him some lemon syrup twice a day for the next week or so. We'll manage the fever as best we can until it goes away. That should control the delirium.”

“But Jon doesn't _dream_ like that,” Robb insisted, the meaning of the world neatly escaping his grasp. “He was so scared.”

“A half measure of dreamwine for the evening, I think,” Maester Luwin said mildly. “Perhaps for both of them? Young Robb seems rather out of sorts, himself.” Ned did not approve of any man drugging himself, and approved less of drugging a child, but Jon was ill and Robb was still fairly buzzing with nervous energy. He nodded his assent. Luwin continued, “You'll want Robb and likely Sansa and Theon as well to take the lemon, I think – these things spread between children. Lady Stark might benefit as well, in her current condition.”

Ned did not relish the thought of that conversation. Catelyn was sometimes reasonable enough about things relating to Jon, and others not. She might simply accept the advice without a word, or she might take it as a personal affront that the boy had fallen ill while she was in such an advanced state of gravidity. It would be a foolish thing to think, and far beneath the woman he knew and loved, but sometimes Cat simply took leave of her senses in relation to this one issue. It grieved him, and yet he knew he had no one to blame but himself. Jon certainly wasn't at fault, and as much as he might wish she could find it in her heart to feel otherwise, Catelyn hadn't asked for their situation.

Maester Luwin dosed the boys with their respective concoctions – Robb made a face at the lemon syrup and Jon choked on it when it burned his throat. Jon sipped back some sort of water and powdered bark infusion more easily, and both boys shuddered at the taste of the dreamwine, their palates too immature to appreciate the less sour notes of its flavour. Ned checked the earthenware jug on their desk for water, and the maester told them to make sure each boy used his own cup. Luwin indicated with a gesture that Ned should follow him to the hall, and with a promise to his boys that he'd return, Ned followed, closing the door behind them.

“You've nothing more ominous to tell me than what you told the the children, I hope?” Ned inquired, feeling an unreasonable anxiety.

Maester Luwin made a noise that might have been a chuckle, the corners of his mouth quirking a bit. “No, my lord.”

“Whatever is it about this that's funny?” Ned asked, perturbed.

“What they say about a father's instincts,” Luwin began, “it's true. To say nothing of your heir. He may feel the loss of what people and station he's been denied someday, but I do not think Jon Snow will ever want for family, my lord.”

“I hope he does not,” Ned said sincerely, though he already had his private worries about that.

“You've all but raised them as twins,” Maester Luwin pointed out. “Then, it would be hard not to with them so close in age, unless you actively tried to keep them apart.”

Ned had to laugh softly at that, himself. “I doubt they'd stand for it, at this point,” he said wryly. “Did you know it was Robb who came to me, tonight?”

“It does not surprise me in the least,” Luwin said with a smile. “In relation to Robb, I must warn you that the odds are better than not he'll fall ill a few days hence.”

“If it's as you said,” Ned wanted to ensure once more, “and there's no risk of the condition advancing, I don't think we've much need to worry.”

“There's not,” the maester confirmed. “But Lady Stark is not to see to either of their care. I shall administer whatever medication is necessary, and any nursemaiding should be done by someone else.”

“I'll tell her,” Ned concurred. “And Jon, he'll be fine for the night, if I leave him here?”

“He was never in much danger, Lord Stark,” Luwin insisted. “Were he several years younger, there might have been cause for concern. Children his age do not bear such discomfort gracefully. I'm sure he was frightened, and I'm sure he'd frightened his brother, as well – but all they both need is some sleep, and they should both be able to now. He should stay in bed, and you should visit him, keep his spirits up, but he'll be fine. Shall I leave you to return to your children?”

“Please, Maester,” Ned agreed. “Thank you.”

Idly thinking, Ned stood for several minutes outside the door to the boys' chambers. When he entered, Robb and Jon were laying on the bed, sleepily murmuring what seemed like half-nonsense between them. Ned heard Jon complain that he'd become far too hot, and when he took in the sight of his son he saw the perspiration that was finally glistening on his brow. That was a good thing, he thought. When Jon noticed their father in the doorway, his eyes flitted to Ned with rather more recognition and clarity than they'd held before, though he still looked ill. 

Robb looked like he might be trying to raise himself on his elbows, but he settled for angling his head a little in Ned's direction. “Hello,” he mumbled through a yawn, pressing his face into Jon's neck when he set his head back down. Ned sat at the foot of the bed. The boys were so short there was nearly two feet of space at the end of it. 

“Hello, boys,” Ned said amicably, touching each of their cheeks in turn. Robb's was wet and tacky with spit, probably from the dreamwine, and Jon's was still too warm but slick with sweat. “Are you feeling any better, Jon?”

Jon gave a clumsy half-nod and made an incoherent sound. “Colours on the ceiling are gone,” he mumbled, half-intelligible. He shoved at Robb's shoulder feebly, wanting his brother to move. “M'still too hot...”

“It will pass,” Ned promised. “Robb, I want you to know that I'm proud of you.”

Robb tilted his head again, looking perplexed. “Why?”

“You took good care of your brother tonight,” Ned told him. “I expect you to continue to do so, for Jon and Sansa and any other siblings you might have. I expect the same of you, Jon, and I will expect the same of Sansa and your new brother or sister when they're old enough.”

Robb wrinkled his nose, fixing his father with a strange look. “Of course I will,” he said matter-of-factly. “That's what brothers are supposed to do.”

Ned laughed, “That's right, Robb. I suppose I didn't need to tell you that, then.” His face drew in on itself, serious again, when he continued, “And Jon. I need you to remember something as well. You are never to want for anything you truly need. Never, do you hear me? If it concerns your physical or emotional well being, I want to know about it. You are my _son,_ and it's wonderful that Robb cares for you, but he shouldn't be doing so in my place.”

“He doesn't,” Jon said, using the same slightly bewildered tone as Robb just had in a slightly scratchier voice. “He's my brother. You're my father.”

 _I must watch him,_ Ned thought, _so quick to defend me, even against myself, and yet he's the one who told Robb not to call on me. If I'm not careful, that will change as he grows._ Even though he was troubled, Ned smiled. He doubted the gravity of what he'd just said had sunk in for either of his boys, tired and drugged as they were, but at least he had said them. He must remember to say them again. He must remember to say them until Jon believed him and until Robb truly understood the sort of man his father meant him to become. But tonight was not that time, not with both Jon and Robb more asleep than awake and in desperate need of the rest. 

“You'll be all right if I leave?” Ned asked them, addressing neither child in particular.

“Now...” Robb stopped, his face splitting in a massive yawn. “Now that Jon's okay,” he agreed. Jon only made another quiet noise, giving no especial indication that he'd even deciphered what his father had said. Ned leaned over each of them to kiss their cheek and rose from the bed.

“Good night, boys,” he said to two pairs of mostly-deaf ears. “Sleep well.”

When Ned made it back to his own bed, tucking himself snugly against his pregnant wife, he himself would not, too troubled by any number of things the evening had stirred up within him.


End file.
